Israel, The Hague Convention and Child Abduction

The above link is to the story of a father fighting for access to his son in both the American and Israeli courts. It harks back to extensive research on international child abduction I had done for my case in 2008. I consulted the website “Find the kids.org” and it had a fascinating comparison of the most active nations involved in this pathetic crime. The same website today states that there are 350,000 child abductions done annually in the US, many of which become international cases.

I wasn’t able to find the quick nation-by-nation comparison table, so I’ll rely on my memory from 2008. In that year there were more US-Israeli cases than there were US-UK, US-Mexico and US-Italy combined! I was astounded given that those three nations combined have about thirty times the population of Israel as well as greater proximity to the US and three centuries of immigrant connections.

Israel may be very protective of its kids, given that they are surrounded by hundreds of millions of Muslims, many of whom pray for Israel’s demise and most of whom have relatively large families which could be seen as crushing the small nation of 8 million in a “demographic vice”.

I’m not advising against marriage, or having a child, with an Israeli, just proceed with caution when it comes to child custody after a separation or divorce. Be VERY cautious with attorneys who will give bland advice on trusting the Hague Convention.

While I’m not a real expert in this area, the Hague Convention seems to be more and more like the new Iranian treaty-looks fine on paper, but it is just a “paper tiger”. People who have put their hopes in a quick reconciliation with their kids have seen their cases drag on for several months or years. The three nations where I’ve spent the most time: Japan, Germany and Israel have all signed Hague and are all strong US allies but all three have low birth rates, fall into the “demography is destiny trap” and fiercely protect those that fall into their court systems, much like the mama bear protected her cubs from the poor Mr. Glass in “The Revanant”.